Keith Saunders

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Dead [bad] presidents

I’m imagining an Albany, California town meeting 100 years ago. One of the city council members opens the meeting by stating, We’ve got to come up with a theme for naming our streets. What could it be? What to do? Then the mayor snaps his finger and shouts, I’ve got it, we’ll name the streets after our nation’s worst presidents!

Thus modern Albany was born. For starters I live on Buchanan St. James Buchanan was the only president to remain a bachelor his entire life. Not only that, he was the only president from Pennsylvania. (my home state, incidentally) During his inauguration he vowed to be president for only one term. That’s like me promising not to play at Carnegie Hall. Buchanan was the last president before the Civil War. Nuff said.

Moving west to east we have Fillmore St. Millard Fillmore, our last Whig president, emerged from poverty out of the Finger Lakes in New York State. The Whigs would evaporate after Fillmore’s term and morph into the ‘No-nothings’

Did I mention how Fillmore gained the presidency? That would be the next street over – Taylor St. Fillmore was Zachary Taylor’s vice president. Taylor died 14 months into his term from a digestive ailment brought about by consuming copious amounts of raw fruit and iced milk.

That’s about all the time I have today for bad presidential memory lane. I didn’t even get to Polk St. Now enjoy this photo of Harvey Keitel.